On July 3rd we went to one of our favourite Charlotte events. The Charlotte Symphony plays a concert outside each Sunday in June and a patriotic concert on July 3rd with fireworks at the end. We left Emerson at home asleep with a babysitter and really enjoyed a few hours with just the older two.

On the 4th we took the kids to a building workshop, then enjoyed some time at my dad's pool. We went to Carowinds in the evening and had fun in the water park, then the kids section and lastly the fireworks. I forgot to take my camera to Carowinds so we didn't get any pictures there.

The kids wanted to buy one of these.

I could not get everyone to smile or look at the same time.

The past few weeks Emerson has taken quite a few naps in the pool. She just falls asleep while we're in the water holding her. Even when there are lots of kids and lots of noise. If we try to get out and lay her down she wakes up right away.

Papa came over late one night and Emerson thought she'd wake up and say hi.

It's my dad's birthday today and Parker wanted to help me make a chocolate cake for him. And by help I mean eat it!

Since we rarely let the kids eat dessert when we're home, Parker is now on a very amusing sugar high after all the batter and icing he kept taking every time I turned away.

I have an idea....

I can clean the dishes with my tongue!

Let's start with this one. It looks like it has some yummy stuff left on it.

Saturday morning we went to take the kids to build a treasure chest at Lowe's but by the time we got there they were all out of kits, even though Chad had registered them =(

So we went to Starbucks instead.

Emerson has discovered the stairs! She made it up several steps this weekend before getting distracted by a brush on the stairs and then lost her balance. If I haven't said this already, she's also eating up a storm, developing quite the temper, not sleeping much (we hope because she's maybe teething) and pulling herself up on everything.

We looked up and there she went up the steps. Time for the baby gates again!

"Ooooh, what's that?"

Where are we going?

Houston, we have a problem!

Happy Canada Day!

So sad I don't have any Canadians to celebrate with me this year. Some day I'll make it back to Canada for Canada Day.

Finally got around to doing some pictures this weekend. We got lots of good ones. Here are just a few of them.